content analysis. a method of social science research

Content Analysis. A method of Social Science Research.CSS 1

10 Content Analysis

A method in Social Science Research1

B Devi Prasad

Content Analysis is described as the scientific study of content of communication. It is

the study of the content with reference to the meanings, contexts and intentions

contained in messages. The term Content Analysis is 75 years old, and Webster’s

Dictionary of English language listed it since 1961.

In 1952, Bernard Berelson published Content analysis in Communication Research,

which heralded recognition for the technique as a versatile tool for social science and

media researchers. Some scholars adopted it for historical and political research as well

(Holsti, 1968). However, the method achieved greater popularity among social science

scholars as well as a method of communication research (Wimmer and Dominick,

1994:163). The development of content analysis as a full-fledged scientific method

took place during World War II when the U.S. government sponsored a project under

the directorship of Harold Lasswell to evaluate enemy propaganda. The resources

made available for research and the methodological advances made in the context of the

problems studied under the project contributed significantly to the emergence of the

methodology in content analysis. One of the out comes of the project, the book entitled

Language of Politics published in 1940s (Lasswell et. al. 1965), still remains a classic

in the field of content analysis. Later on, the method spread to other disciplines

(Woodrum, 1984).

1 From: Lal Das, D.K and Bhaskaran, V (eds.). (2008) Research methods for Social Work, New

Delhi:Rawat, pp.173-193.


Definition and purpose of Content analysis

Content denotes what is contained and content analysis is the analysis of what is

contained in a message. Broadly content analysis may be seen as a method where the

content of the message forms the basis for drawing inferences and conclusions about

the content (Nachmias and Nachmias, 1976). Further, content analysis falls in the

interface of observation and document analysis. It is defined as a method of observation

in the sense that instead of asking people to respond to questions, it “takes the

communications that people have produced and asks questions of communications”

(Kerlinger, 1973). Therefore, it is also considered as an unobtrusive or non-reactive

method of social research.

A number of definitions of content analysis are available. According to Berelson (1952)

content analysis is a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative

description of the manifest content of communication. Holsti (1968) says that it is any

technique for making inferences by systematically and objectively identifying specified

characteristics of messages. Kerlinger (1986) defined content analysis as a method of

studying and analyzing communication in a systematic, objective, and quantitative

manner for the purpose of measuring variables.

Krippendorff (1980) defined content analysis as a research technique for making

replicable and valid inferences from data to their context. As for Weber (1985) it is a

research methodology that utilizes a set of procedures to make valid inferences from

text. These inferences are about sender(s) of message, the message itself, or the

audience of message. According to Stone, content analysis refers to any procedure for

assessing the relative extent to which specified references, attitudes, or themes

permeate a given message or document.

A careful examination of the definitions of the method show emphasis placed on

aspects such as system, objectivity, quantification, context and validity - with reference

to the inferences drawn from the communication content about the sender, the message

or the receiver of the message. Thus, content analysis is all about making valid,


replicable and objective inferences about the message on the basis of explicit rules. The

material for the content analysis can be letters, diaries, newspaper content, folk songs,

short stories, messages of Radio, Television, documents, texts or any symbols.

Further, like any other research method, content analysis conforms to three basic

principles of scientific method. They are:

1. Objectivity: Which means that the analysis is pursued on the basis of explicit rules,

which enable different researchers to obtain the same results from the same

documents or messages.

2. Systematic: The inclusion or exclusion of content is done according to some

consistently applied rules where by the possibility of including only materials which

support the researcher’s ideas – is eliminated.

3. Generalizability: The results obtained by the researcher can be applied to other

similar situations.

Now, if content of communication forms the material for content analysis, where does a

content analyst find himself/herself in the communication process? Figure 1 shows the

communication process and where the analyst figures.

Figure 1

Where does content analyst find himself/herself?

As can be seen, the analyst figures at the point of the message, and as Holsti (1968:601)

points out, draws inferences about sender(s) of message, characteristics of message

itself, or the effects of the communication on the audience – that is the researcher

interprets the content so as to reveal something about the nature of the audience or of its

effects. Lasswell incorporated these components in his classical formulation:

WHO says WHAT to WHOM with WHAT EFFECT?

Source Message Channel Receiver

Transmission Content

analyst


Table 1 adopted from Berelson (1952) gives a comprehensive picture of the different

uses/applications of the method of content analysis.

Table 1

The Purposes of Content Analysis

Purpose Questions Research problems

To describe the

characteristics of content

� To describe trends in

communication content.

� To relate known characteristics

of sources to the messages they

produce.

What?

� To check communication

content against standards

� To analyze techniques of

persuasion

How?

� To analyze style

� To relate known characteristics

of the audience to messages

produced for them.

To whom?

� To describe patterns of

communication.

To make inferences

about the causes of

content

� To secure political and military

intelligence.

� To analyze psychological traits

of individuals

� To infer aspects of culture and

cultural change

Why?

� To provide legal evidence

Who?

� To answer questions of

disputed authorship.

To make inferences

about the effect of

content With what

effect?

� To measure readability

� To analyze the flow of

information.

� To assess responses to

Communication.


Uses of Content Analysis

Now, an attempt is made in this section, using some studies as examples, to explain

about the applications of content analysis.

Though scholars from various disciplines such as social sciences, communications,

psychology, political science, history, and language studies use content analysis, it is

most widely used in social science and mass communication research. It has been used

broadly to understand a wide range of themes such as social change, cultural symbols,

changing trends in the theoretical content of different disciplines, verification of

authorship, changes in the mass media content, nature of news coverage of social issues

or social problems such as atrocities against women, dowry harassment, social

movements, ascertaining trends in propaganda, election issues as reflected in the mass

media content, and so on.

One of its most important applications has been to study social phenomenon such as

prejudice, discrimination or changing cultural symbols in the communication content.

For example, Berelson and Salter (1948) in their classic content analysis study

highlighted the media under-representation of minority groups. They studied prejudice

– a consistent discrimination against minority groups of Americans - in popular

magazine fiction. They content analyzed 198 short stories published in eight of the

popular magazines during the period 1937 – 1943 and discussed their findings under

the broad categories such as the distribution of characters, their role, appearance, status

and their goals which the authors further classified as ‘head’ goals and ‘heart’ goals.

To understand the changing cultural symbols, Taviss (1969) content analyzed popular

fiction in the 1900s and the 1950s to test the hypothesis that social alienation had been

decreasing in middle class American society, while self-alienation had been increasing.

The results indicated, for instance, an overall rise in the appearance of alienation

themes, a slight decrease in social alienation and a large increase in self-alienation.

Similarly, Lowenthall (1944) in his famous article “Biographies in popular magazines”

examined the changing definitions of heroes in popular magazines in the US, and

observed a drift away from working professionals and businessmen to entertainers. In


another interesting study, Chai (1978) studied the political conflict in Red China

following the death of Mao Tse-Tung in 1976, by analyzing the content of 40 obituary

notices – received by the central committee of the Communist Party of China, as it was

impossible for American scholars to survey or to observe first hand the Chinese

reaction to Mao’s death.

One of the most frequent uses of the content analysis is to study the changing trends in

the theoretical content and methodological approaches by content analyzing the journal

articles of the discipline (Loy, 1979). Using this approach, Vijayalakshmi et al. (1996)

analysed a stratified random sample of 194 research articles published in the Indian

Journal of Social Work from 1971 to 1990 to identify characteristics of authors, and

document the trends in empirical content, subject areas, and methodological

characteristics such as source of data, research design, sampling, and statistical

techniques used in the articles. Similarly, public attitude towards important issues such

as civic amenities, unemployment and so on were assessed by analysing the content of

editorials or letters to the editor in newspapers (Inkeles et.al, 1952 &1953; Devi Prasad

et. al. 1992).

One significant area of its use has been the analysis of newspaper content of the

election coverage and editorial treatment to mould the opinion of voters. For example,

Devi Prasad et. al.(1991), analyzed the editorials and letters to the editor published in

four dailies in India before the 1991 elections to find out the prominent election related

themes which figured in the news and direction of their coverage in the respective

newspapers.

As a known unobtrusive research method, content analysis is some times used to study

sensitive topics to corroborate the findings arrived at by other methods. Devi Prasad

(1994) analyzed the dowry-related news items published in three English and six

regional language daily newspapers during the period from 1981 to 1988. The news

items were analyzed to understand the background of the dowry victim, persons

involved in the conflict, possible causes of conflict, nature of victim’s abuse and death,

and nature of reporting.


Content analysis has also been used to ascertain trends in the communication content of

dailies, weeklies, cartoons, and coverage of development news, political news and

crime news. Murty (2001) analyzed the news items, letters to the editor, and editorials

of four selected dailies in India published during the calendar year of 1995, to make a

comparative study of the coverage of development news. Political science researches

have used the method to analyze the propaganda devices used by the warring groups

(George, 1959; Lasswell et. al., 1965).

Other important applications of the method were systematic analyses of advertisements

in newspapers and magazines to draw useful inference on national culture, as well as

media preferences of advertisers (Auter and Moore, 1993; Wang, 1996). Similarly,

television, radio, and movies offer rich sources of material for content analysis. Many

scholars have explored changes in women’s roles, sexual behaviour and health, and

violence by analysing the content of in television and movie messages (Head, 1952;

Lowry, 1989; Olson, 1994).

The above examples throw light on the range and diversity of studies, which made use

of the method of content analysis. They also show the variety of messages used to draw

inferences about the source, content of the message etc. Though a versatile method, it

has its strengths and limitations. An understanding of these will help us use the method

effectively.

What content analysis can do?

1. It goes beyond the impressionistic observations about the phenomena and can help

you make a quantitative expression about the phenomenon i.e. express it in

numbers, in percentages, which will be more specific, and objective.

2. It is an unobtrusive research technique useful to study sensitive research topics.

3. It is context-sensitive and therefore can process symbolic meanings of data.

Though predominantly seen as a quantitative method, it can effectively capture

qualitative content as well (Stempel, 1989:121). The context-sensitivity of the


method will be useful in articulating the qualitative dimensions such as for

example, the direction of coverage of news items as favorable or unfavorable.

4. It is a safe method in the sense that if the researcher found that a portion of the

necessary information was missing or incorrectly coded, it is possible to return to

the text and supplement the missing data. This is not always possible in

experimental or survey research (Woodrum, 1984).

5. It can deal with large volumes of data. Processing may be laborious but of late

computers made the job fairly easy.

6. It is a shoestring methodology, which is typically labour-intensive and requires

minimum capital investment.

What it cannot do?

1. Its inferences are limited to the content of the text only. Similarly, symbols are

processed and coded according to the attribution given by the researcher or coder.

There is no guarantee that the sender or receiver shares the same attributed

meaning.

2. When it deals with semantic differences or differences in regard to the meanings

of words, the findings can be less valid and reliable.

3. It is argued that content analysis which confines itself to counting the individual

units and their frequency of occurrence such as for example the number of times

the word ‘globalisation’ appeared, may fail to capture the meaning or significance

with which these symbols are used in the texts analyzed.

4. The reliability and validity issues in content analysis still remain unresolved

(Krippendorff, 1980)

5. The method cannot be used to test casual relationships between variables

(Chadwick, et. al., 1984).


Doing content analysis

Content Analysis begins with a specific statement of the objectives or research

questions to be studied. The researcher asks the question ‘what do I want to find out

from this communication content’ and frames the objectives for study. The researcher

must therefore locate a source of communication relevant to the research question and

ask questions that can be solved by content analysis.

The objective of content analysis is to convert recorded “raw” phenomena into data,

which can be treated in essentially a scientific manner so that a body of knowledge may

be built up. In fact, the researcher who wishes to undertake a study using content

analysis must deal with four methodological issues: selection of units of analysis,

developing categories, sampling appropriate content, and checking reliability of coding

(Stempel, 1989).

More specifically studies using content analysis usually involve the following six steps:

1. Formulation of the research question or objectives

2. Selection of communication content and sample

3. Developing content categories

4. Finalizing units of analysis

5. Preparing a coding schedule, pilot testing and checking inter coder reliabilities

6. Analyzing the collected data

In the following pages, I shall explain each step in brief and use an article as an

example to relate steps involved in taking up a content analysis study. However, I wish

to add a caution that as content analysis is a versatile method, the sample article may

reflect only a limited number of the wide range of options practiced in the method at

each step.

Formulation of the research questions or objectives

As mentioned earlier, by making a clear statement of the research question or objective,

the researcher can ensure that the analysis focuses on those aspects of content, which

are relevant for the research. Content analysis is a method for analyzing textual content.

Therefore, the selection of topic should be one that can be answered by analyzing the

appropriate communication content.


Box 1

In his study on dowry-related violence, Devi Prasad (1994) used content analysis to

examine the characteristics of dowry-related news:

� To examine the frequency and uniformity of the occurrence of certain characteristics of

dowry-related death or abuse.

� To draw inferences of a comparative nature to help understand the nature and variety of

dowry cases reported in the newspapers.

In other words, what is it that we would hope to be able to say about something by

analysing the communication content or a body of text? For example, a research

question in one study (Devi Prasad & Sampath Kumar, 1991) asked ‘which election

issues had figured prominently during 1991 elections in the editorials and letters to the

editor of selected dailies and how these dailies differed in terms of the frequency of

appearance and the direction of treatment (favourable unfavourable, or neutral) of these

issues’. Thus, as with other methods of social research, well-formulated research

question or objective can give focus to a study using this method (See Box 1). In the

name of frequency of appearance of items or symbols, content analysis should not

however fall into the ‘counting for the sake of counting’ syndrome. For simply

counting for the purpose of counting will not yield any meaningful results.

Selection of communication content and sample

The next step would be to locate relevant communication content to answer the

research question and to determine the time period to be covered. If the body of content

is excessive, then a sample needs to be worked out. Though sampling in content

analysis is not so much different from sampling in surveys, because of the unique

nature of the source material used in this method, there developed some special

sampling techniques for content analysis. Thus, depending upon the nature of the

communication content – whether it is a new item, editorial, short story or a TV serial –

the sampling techniques differ. For instance, the use of constructed week and

consecutive day sampling to control the bias of cyclical trends in news coverage (Riffe,

et al., 1993; Budd & Donohue, 1967), and the use of basic space unit approach

(Danielson & Mullen, 1965:108-110) to take a sample from large volumes of

newspaper content - are some of the examples. Useful advice on some of these


sampling techniques in content analysis is discussed in Budd & Donohue (1967).

Murty (2001) used in his study the constructed week and consecutive day sampling and

gave a detailed description of the steps involved. A typical description of samples in

content analysis specifies a topic area and time period. Thus, the description of the

sample for the study on dowry related violence is given in the following Box 2.

Developing content (subject) categories

Content categories can be defined as compartments or “pigeon holes” with explicitly

stated boundaries into which the units of content are coded for analysis. They in fact

flow from the research question and should be anchored in a review of relevant

literature and related studies. Content categories are constructed in response to the

Box 2

Method And Sample

The newspapers, when reporting dowry-related news, present a variety of facts

about the incident: the background of the victim, persons involved in the conflict,

possible causes of conflict, and the nature of victims’ abuse or death.

A purposive sample consisting of three English daily newspapers (Indian Express,

The Hindu, and Deccan Chronicle), and six regional languages (Telugu) daily

newspapers (Eenadu, Andhra Prabha, Andhra Jyoti, Andhra Bhoomi, Udayam and

Visalandhra) were selected. The prime consideration in the selection of the

newspapers was prominence, as reflected in their circulation and regional

representation.

The daily newspapers were surveyed from January 1981 to December 1988. The

leading English language daily, Indian Express, and the leading regional language

(Telugu) daily, Eenadu, were taken as the ‘base’ daily newspapers and all dowry-

related news items that appeared during the period were taken from these two

daily newspapers.

In order to eliminate duplication, news items from the other dailies were included

in the sample only when the Indian Express or Eenadu did not report these items

or did not detail full information about them.

One hundred and twenty-five dowry-related news items were collected and formed

the data for analysis. The sample, however, does not indicate the incidence of

dowry-related cases either in the various states or in the country as a whole for the

period surveyed because it is possible that cases of dowry-related abuse or death

might not have been reported in the print media.


Box 3

Content categories developed for the study on dowry related violence

� Victim’s background – age, education and occupation

� Background of the victim’s husband

� Nature and patterns dowry giving

� Duration of marriage at the time of incident

� Location where the incident took place

� Type of abuse/nature of death

� Nature of demands leading to the conflict

� Persons participating in the abuse of the woman

� Types of endings/outcomes

� Reporting the endings/outcomes

query: What classification would most efficiently yield the data needed to answer the

research questions raised?

The first step in category construction is preliminary examination of the

communications by the researcher on a small-scale or as a pilot study so that such

examination will result in the identification of possible content categories into which

material can be coded. Usually one experiments with several categories before

finalising a set of categories that can be used for the study. Sometimes, category

systems already developed by other researchers may also prove useful for your study.

Developing the category system to classify the body of text is the heart of content

analysis. Berelson (1952:147) rightly points out: “Content analysis stands or falls by its

categories. Particular studies have been productive to the extent that the categories were

clearly formulated and well adapted to the problem and the content”.

To be useful, every content category must be completely and thoroughly defined,

indicating what type of material is and is not to be included. Such definitions in most

of the cases should be written down before coding begins. These form the operational

definitions of categories. According to Chadwick et al., (1984), categories must be

mutually exclusive so that a word, a paragraph or a theme belongs in one and only one

category. Also, the categories must be exhaustive so that all units examined fit in an

appropriate category. Sometimes, a ‘miscellaneous or residual category’ is added for

units that occur rarely or are un-codable for other reasons. The content categories

developed for the dowry related violence is shown in the Box 3.


Finalizing units of analysis

At this stage, that is, once the categories are identified and defined in terms of the

research objectives, the content analyst asks two interrelated questions. They are:

a. What unit of content is to be selected for classification under the categories? and

b. What system of enumeration will be used?

Let us begin with the first question. The unit of analysis is the smallest unit of content

that is coded into the content category. The units of analysis vary with the nature of

data and the purpose of research. Thus, the unit of analysis might be a single word, a

letter, a symbol, a theme (a single assertion about one subject), a news story, a short

story, a character, an entire article, or an entire film or a piece of programme.

There are two kinds of units of analysis. 1) Recording units, 2) Context units. The

recording unit is the specific segment of content in which the occurrence of a

reference/fact is counted or the unit can be broken down so that reference/facts can be

placed in different categories. For example, if it is a single word say ‘democracy’, the

number of times the word appears can be counted. Similarly, a sentence, or a

paragraph, a news item or an article containing a symbol or a theme, or a group of facts

can also be a unit. Thus, a news item containing a group of facts can be coded in

different categories. According to Nachmias & Nachmias, (1976), five major recording

units have been used frequently in content analysis research: words or terms, themes,

characters, paragraphs and items (p. 135). The ‘item’ may be an entire book, an article,

a speech or the like.

However, for instance, ‘attitude toward democracy’ cannot be inferred solely on the

basis of the frequency with which the word democracy ‘appears’ in the communication.

Here the context unit becomes relevant. Thus, the context unit is the larger body of

content that may be searched to characterize the recording unit (Berelson, 1952). For

example, if the coding unit is the word, then the context unit may be the sentence or the

paragraph in which the word appears and characterizes the recording unit (See Box 4).


Box 4

Units of Analysis

Four types of news items, the News Story, the Human Interest Story, the

Editorial, and Other (which includes a news photo or a letter to the editor, that

may answer any of the six basic questions that a news story covers) were

chosen as units of analysis, as they cover the required information for this study

and also deal with facts with the minimum degree of distortion.

Coming to the second question, in content analysis, the counting or quantification of the

units is performed by using three methods of enumeration: a) space /time, b) frequency

and c) intensity or direction. A unit of analysis can be measured in terms of space (for

example, number of column inches) or time (minutes devoted to a news item on the

TV). In the case of frequency, it is the number of times a given unit or theme figured in

a body of text - is recorded. Intensity or direction implies the measurement of the

direction of the symbolic meaning contained in the message. For example, in one study,

the authors coded the direction of treatment (as favourable, unfavourable, or neutral) of

the role of election commission in the 1991 elections by the editorials in the selected

newspapers (Devi Prasad & Sampath Kumar, 1991).

Preparing a coding schedule, pilot testing and checking inter coder reliabilities

Defining categories and preparing coding schedule for the analysis and coding of

content are simultaneous steps. A coding schedule resembles a survey questionnaire

and contains different dimensions of the communication content to be coded. Next,

piloting the coding schedule is a crucial step before launching the full-scale content

analysis. Test coding of a small sample of the material to be analyzed helps reveal

inconsistencies and inadequacies in the category construction.

Coding the unit of analysis into a content category is called coding. Individuals who do

coding are called coders. The coder may be the investigator himself/herself or

employed by the investigator. Careful training of coders, which usually results in a

more reliable coding, is an essential task in any content analysis. It is probably

desirable to have, even in a small-scale study, more than one coder to independently

code the units and to check the inter coder reliabilities. Chadwick et al (1984:249)


suggested a method of computing inter coder reliability by calculating a coefficient of

reliability. It is calculated by dividing the number of units placed in the same category

by the number of units coded.

Number of units in the same category Coefficient of reliability =

Total number of units coded

Holsti (North et al, 1963) suggested a formula2 to arrive at inter coder reliabilities.

2(C1, 2) R =

C1 + C2

Analyzing the collected data

How should the data be analyzed? The definition of the research problem gives

direction to data analysis, the patterns to be examined, and the relationships to be

explored. As in the case of analysis of survey data, the starting point can be the

description of the profile of the main categories such as for example characteristics and

types of content by period, actors, and so on. Later, the analysis can move to conduct

2Where C1, 2 is the number of category assignments both coders agree on, and C1 + C2 is the total of

category assignments arrived at by both coders.

Table 2

Distribution of Various Means and Methods Adopted for Committing Murder of

the Woman

Method Percentage

Pouring kerosene and setting fire to her 46.3

Poisoning 14.6

Beating to death 9.8

Strangling 7.2

Beheading 2.5

Drowning 2.5

Not mentioned 17.1

n = 41 100.0


more complex analyses comparing two or more dimensions, periods or data sets.

Tables- univariate and bivariate - can be prepared and cross tabulations can be arrived

at. Depending on the nature of data, the statistical principles that apply to other areas of

survey research will also apply to content studies with a very few differences (Stemple,

1989:132). The findings can be presented forcefully even with simple percentages and

cross tables. Tables 2 and 3 from the sample article on dowry related violence are

shown here. In one case, in Table 3, the death occurred in a place close to the couple’s

residence where the husband, a police constable, murdered his wife and threw her body

into the river.

One important development in content analysis is the use of computers in data analysis.

Computer programmes like the “General Inquirer” can identify within a body of text,

those words and phrases that belong to specified categories (Stone et al., 1996).

However, when text must be searched for ideas or themes, or when coding ‘contexts

units’ with an eye for, let us say, ascertaining direction of treatment – then human

coders are more sensitive than computers. Other more popular programmes such as

SPSS, Atlas ti, QSR NUDIST, Minitab etc., are useful in assisting analysis of both

quantitative as well as qualitative data generated though the method.

Table 3

Distribution Showing the Types of Ending by Where it Occurred (in percentage)

Location Suicide Murder Death under

suspicious

circumstances

Abuse

In-laws’ place 25.6 27.2 9.6 20.0

Couple’s place 4.8 4.0 0.8 3.2

Parent’s place 1.6 - 0.8 -

Elsewhere - 1.6

- 0.8

N = 125 32.0 32.8 11.2 24.0


To sum up, content analysis is a useful research technique for analyzing large bodies of

text. It offers objective guidelines in the coding of the text and to draw inferences from

the data. It helps in the coding of the text according to systematic and objective rules

and in drawing inferences from the data. A successful content analysis study is the

outcome of a series of good decisions. The process starts from the point of deciding

whether the method is suitable to study the research topic under question. After clearly

setting out the objectives of the study, the researcher proceeds to make decisions

relating to units of analysis, developing content categories, sample and the sampling

period. Orienting coders, checking inter coder reliabilities and selecting appropriate

statistical designs for presenting results are some of the essential tasks, which add rigor

to the study.

Content analysis has its limitations. What it does not tell us is about causal connections

between variables under study. For example, it is good at capturing the changing trends

in the subject content of professional articles published in a journal (Loy, 1979). But it

cannot answer why there were changes in the subject content. Further, though a popular

research method both in the Social sciences and Mass communications, it is still used as

a technique to supplement the findings of mainstream research designs such as survey

research. Woodrum (1984) rightly argues that “content analysis remains an under

utilized research method with great potential for studying beliefs, organizations,

attitudes and human relations. The limited application and development of content

analysis is due more to unfamiliarity with the method and to its historic isolation from

main stream social science than to its inherent limitations”.


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* For further reading.

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